Lilac Road shops were converted into houses in the late 2000s, and the Thornhill Road shop was demolished in the 2009 as part of the North Priory redevelopment. Priory Park was laid out in 1932, with iron railing around the perimeter.(These were removed during the war for the metal to be used in the war effort.) The same year that Priory Road was fully opened to give Dudley a direct road link with the Birmingham New Road in Coseley – incorporating the Priory Ruins as well as Priory Hall (former home of Sir Gilbert Claughton). Priory Hall is currently in use as Dudley Registry Office, and has been based there since the office's relocation from a building in Ednam Road in about 1990. The Park itself was restored between 2012 and 2013 through support from Dudley Council, Heritage Lottery Fund and Big Lottery Fund. Most of the people living in the council houses on the Priory Estate were rehoused from town centre slum clearances. They were generally pleased with living in new houses which had gardens, electricity, hot and cold running tap water, bathrooms, toilets, a solid fuel boiler, with kitchens and an adjacent pantry. But the Priory Estate quickly ran into problems, with vandalism, litter, graffiti, vehicle crime, burglary and drug dealing becoming widespread, particularly on the north side of the estate, by the 1980s. Unemployment in the area was also relatively high. However, the Priory Estate was not as severely affected by these issues as the neighbouring Wren's Nest, or indeed several other parts of the Dudley borough and neighbouring Sandwell. The homes of elderly people were targeted most frequently by vandals and other criminals; in 1991, a plank of wood was hurled through the window of a room in which a 90-year-old woman was sleeping. The most famous former resident of the Priory Estate is footballer Duncan Edwards, who was born two miles away at Holly Hall but moved to 31 Elm Road as a small child, attending Priory Primary School (1941 to 1948) and then Wolverhampton Street School. Edwards went on to play 18 times for England as well as winning two Football League championships with Manchester United, before he died in 1958 at the age of 21 from injuries sustained in the Munich air disaster. After his death, a stained glass window was dedicated to Edwards at St Francis' Parish Church at the junction of